Syriza names journalist as replacement MEP

Greek radical left party Syriza has chosen Stelios Kouloglou, a journalist and writer, to join the European Parliament as a replacement for Georgios Katrougalos, who has joined the national government.

Katrougalos, 51, who joined the European Parliament after last year's elections, was sworn in as deputy minister of administrative reform on Tuesday (27 January) in Alexis Tsipras’s coalition government after the far-left won Sunday's (25 January) general election.

Before joining the European Parliament, Katrougalos owned a law firm (1999-2009) and worked as a legal advisor to the Greek mission at the United Nations, dealing with human rights issues. He was a professor of public law at the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece.

His replacement Kouloglou, 61, worked as a journalist in France and Russia and covered the war in Yugoslavia in 1992-95. He has written books on current affairs and politics and made a series of investigative reports for Greek public broadcaster ERT. He founded a news web channel ‘TV without frontiers’ in 2008.

Kouloglou was next in line to be a Syriza MEP after last May's election. The party won six of Greece’s 21 seats in the election. In the 2009 European elections, it won just one seat.